Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo plans to release a comprehensive domestic violence bill next week, culminating months of work with Attorney General Martha Coakley that began last fall.

DeLeo has said the danger that domestic violence victims face caught his attention last summer when 27-year-old Jennifer Martel was allegedly killed by her boyfriend Jared Remy at their Waltham home.

Remy is accused of murdering Martel the night after being arraigned in Waltham District Court on assault charges for allegedly slamming Martel's face into a mirror. She did not appear in court to renew an emergency restraining order, and Remy was released on personal recognizance.

Last fall, Coakley and DeLeo visited several domestic violence programs and talked to district attorneys and police chiefs to study the problem and search for solutions that could be employed statewide.

They talked about replicating an approach where police, prosecutors, parole officers and victim advocates share information about cases to assess the risk a victim faces. The goal of the team method is to prevent domestic violence murders by predicting when they could occur. The idea originated at the Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center in Amesbury, where the strategy was born in the wake of a murder.

Dorothy Giunta-Cotter, the mother of two young girls, was murdered by her husband William on March 26, 2002. After nearly 20 years of abuse, Giunta-Cotter had obtained a restraining order, and was living in a shelter before she moved back into her Amesbury home, where she was murdered.

Her death changed the way advocates at the center thought about keeping victims safe, according to Kelly Dunne, chief of operations at the center. Before Giunta-Cotter's murder, all agencies were acting in silos by themselves and not communicating, she said last October when DeLeo and Coakley visited the center.

Details of the bill DeLeo plans to release were unavailable, according to a spokesman.

Advocates for domestic violence victims have anxiously awaited passage of a handful of bills that they say would help survivors, according to Maureen Gallagher, policy director of Jane Doe Inc.

Last October, the Senate passed a bill (S 1897) that wrapped several pieces of legislation into one, including a provision that ensures victims can take time off work without fear of losing their job when they go to court, medical and counseling or other appointments related to abuse.

The legislation also makes strangulation a felony offense. Currently when an abuser strangles or suffocates another, sometimes to the point of unconsciousness, and then releases the victim so they do not die, it can only be prosecuted as a misdemeanor crime of assault and battery, according to Jane Doe Inc.

The Senate bill included another provision to amend the state’s accord and satisfaction statute to exclude domestic violence offenses from the type of offense that can be dismissed when a victim acknowledges satisfaction for injuries resulting from the alleged criminal conduct. Accord and satisfaction is intended to allow parties in minor physical altercations to reach agreement outside of court.

Page 2 of 2 - Advocates say the very nature of domestic abuse makes victims more likely to agree to accord and satisfaction agreements. Massachusetts is the only state in the country that allows civil compromise over the prosecution’s objection in domestic violence cases, according to Jane Doe Inc. Prohibiting the use of accord and satisfaction in domestic violence cases would protect victims from being “re-victimized” by being coerced or threatened into accord and satisfaction agreements.